


A Brief Report On Being In Love (diGenova, 2019)

by Sixthlight



Series: The Very Dumb Academics AU [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Family, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Introspection, Love Confessions, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27151289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: The first time Joe said “I love you,” to Nicky, Nicky knew he wasn’t really thinking about it.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Very Dumb Academics AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981903
Comments: 78
Kudos: 1151





	A Brief Report On Being In Love (diGenova, 2019)

**Author's Note:**

> This is set during Chapter 4 of Explaining Is Losing (just after Nicky moves in with Joe).

The first time Joe said “I love you,” to Nicky, Nicky knew he wasn’t really thinking about it. It was two weeks after Nicky had moved into his flat. Joe was on his way out the door to an early meeting he hadn’t been able to reschedule (Nicky had learned over the last few months that he was _not_ an early riser) and he’d poked his head back in to ask, hastily, “Did we decide what we were doing about dinner?”

“I’ve got it, don’t worry,” Nicky said absently; he was sitting on the couch and reading a journal article, which was something he preferred to do at home, where – until recently – he could be guaranteed a lack of interruptions. “You’re cooking tomorrow, though.”

“You’re amazing, I love you, I have to run,” Joe said, and slammed the door. Nicky sat there frozen for five minutes, waiting for Joe to reappear. He didn’t.

*

If anybody had asked Nicky, which they had not, because Nicky had gone to quite extraordinary lengths to make sure nobody would – if anybody had asked Nicky how long he’d been in love with Joe, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them. It had, perhaps, been the day when Joe had come back to his office and dragged him back into the storage closet and got down on his knees and said _I don’t like leaving things uneven_ , and Nicky had nearly spontaneously combusted on the spot. Or, no, that hadn’t been love; it had been nuclear-blast levels of lust, but not love. But certainly it had been there, in some degree, by the time Nicky had invited Joe over for dinner and Joe – instead of laughing, or awkwardly leaving – had sat down and eaten dinner and it had been…nice.

Nicky genuinely hadn’t really, _really_ , been expecting that. His rivalry with Joe had been maintained largely because pride was his overwhelming sin (as his confessor knew all too well), and his personality included a level of sheer ingrained pettiness that had prevented him apologising to Joe even though it was deserved and, actually, was compounding the offense the longer he didn’t. There was also a kind of mean pleasure in it; Joe was fun to spar with, smart and witty and willing to be dragged down to Nicky’s level.

The fact that Joe was far and away the most attractive person Nicky had met in his life (and kind, and generous, and pleasant…to people who weren’t Nicky) had only somehow made it worse. After the incident – incidents – in the storage closet, Nicky had kept pushing because he knew that at _some_ point, Joe would reject him, and then he could comfortably hate him for a reason that wasn’t entirely and unquestionably Nicky’s fault. That would be its own kind of terrible compensation.

Except he hadn’t, and he hadn’t, and Nicky had woken up the morning after that dinner with Joe wrapped around him, in Nicky’s very terrible and barely big enough bed, and known that he was in love and had no idea what to do about it. And now they were living together and he still had no idea what to do about it. Not because he thought Joe didn’t care about him; Joe just didn’t have the personality to use somebody like that. But because they had spent all this time not saying anything important to each other and Nicky didn’t know where to start. The very first thing he’d ever done with Joe was blow him in a storage closet on the very thin excuse of having lost a bet that Joe hadn’t even agreed to. He couldn’t just come out and declare his love now. Their affection for each other had always lived in the silences.

He gave up on reading the article because it wasn’t going to happen, and went to work, where he taught distractedly through two lectures, then sat through a committee meeting and contributed precisely nothing. This was still more useful than the very annoying (and badly-dressed) Vice-Chancellor who’d come to speak to them. At least he and Joe could be united in hating the administration (to be strictly separated from the administrative _staff_ , who were the glue holding their departments together).

His oldest brother Franco called him at three o’clock. Franco felt the need to maintain a sort of patriarchal role in the family, which was funny because Nicky’s father was unfortunately still alive (he had been fifty when Nicky was born; he wasn’t young) and Franco was the only child who was still speaking to him. Giovanna hated their father because of his views on what women should do, Bernadetta was in the irredeemably queer basket with Nicky, and Marco had just enough family feeling to side with the majority of his siblings. Nicky tolerated Franco keeping up the tie because he knew it did come from a place of Franco caring for all of them, but knowing that anything and everything he said would eventually make it back to their father tended to temper how much he shared.

Franco told him all about what his children were doing before wanting to know what was new in Nicky’s life. Nicky did care about that, at least a little, as Giulia and Francesco were close to his own age and he had more or less grown up with them, but then on the other hand he also knew it all already because of Facebook.

“I moved,” Nicky said. “I’ll send you the new address. It’s not very far away, only a couple of streets.”

“Oh, why? Your flat was fine. Dark, but fine.”

Nicky thought about the disapproving curl of Franco’s mouth when Bernadetta had defiantly mentioned she wasn’t the only gay one in the family, and the way he never asked if Nicky was seeing anybody, and Joe saying _You’re amazing, I love you_ , and thought: fuck it. “I’ve moved in with someone.”

Franco sounded startled. “Oh! Oh. Someone, like…I know rent in London is very high…”

“Someone I am in a relationship with,” Nicky said, feeling guilty because he didn’t know if that was what Joe would say, but it was true, wasn’t it? It was some kind of relationship. “A man. Since I know you’re wondering.”

“No, no, of course I know –” Franco made a impatient noise. “Don’t be difficult, Nico. Nobody is oppressing you. So tell me about him. How did you meet?”

“We work together. He teaches art history.”

He could hear Franco frowning. “Wasn’t there some art history professor you didn’t get on with –”

“Oh, no, that was someone totally different,” Nicky lied point-blank. “Joe and I have a lot in common.”

“Joe, huh. Is he English?” More frowning. “I suppose that’s not so bad…”

“Dutch,” Nicky said, and waited a beat. “But his family is from Tunisia. He’s Muslim.”

He clenched his left hand around his thumb, but all Franco said was “I would have thought you’d have enough trouble with the Church without that as well.”

“Well, I didn’t pick him out because he wouldn’t be trouble,” Nicky snapped, and had to reel it back. “You’d all like him. He’s one of the nicest people I know.” Joe would be, to Nicky’s family, he knew it. Even Franco, who did not at all deserve it. 

“It must be serious, if you’ve moved in with him,” Franco said, thoughtfully. “I know you wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t.”

“I – yes,” Nicky said, and felt like he was baring his soul and lying through his teeth at the exact same time; a very strange feeling. “Yes. Yes, it is.” Another breath. “It’s…it’s been about a year and a half.” At least if you counted from the storage closet; since he wasn’t giving any details, Nicky supposed he could do that.

“You should tell us these things, Nico!” Franco admonished him. “That’s forever! Giovanna got married in less time than that!” Nicky took the lecture quietly and made his excuses to end the call, heart pounding. He wasn’t sure why.

He took a breath, and dialed his mother’s number. He couldn’t let Franco tell her this.

*

Nicky had to chase Joe out of the kitchen when he got home. “Am I cooking, or not?”

“You’re cooking, and I won’t be in the way,” Joe said at once.

“Yes, you will. Go.”

“Why are you so mean to me?” Joe laughed.

“Because I love you enough to want to feed you something edible, which it won’t be if you keep distracting me. Out,” Nicky said, all in a rush. Joe laughed again and kissed him. He didn’t say anything. Nicky wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not.

Late that night, after they’d turned the lights out, Joe sighed into the back of Nicky’s neck.

“What?” Nicky said.

“This evening,” Joe said. “In the kitchen. Did you say you loved me?”

“Does that sound like something I would say?” Nicky could feel the part of them that took over when they sparred doing the talking, and he hated it; why did he do this to himself? And to Joe.

“No,” Joe said, but gently. “No, of course not.” He kissed the back of Nicky’s neck, and said something Nicky couldn’t understand. It wasn’t even Arabic.

“I don’t know what that means,” Nicky said, wrapped up in Joe, dizzy with it.

“Yes you do,” Joe said, quiet, insistent. Nicky turned over in his arms, so he could lean their foreheads together.

“Yes I do,” he whispered. Joe held his hand in the quiet warm dark, and they breathed.

Nicky hadn’t expected it would be like this, being loved. His whole life was words; their whole dislike of each other had been words; and now, in this moment, he found he didn’t need them at all.

**Author's Note:**

> no promises on more in this universe...unless I decide to write the fic where they go to a conference.


End file.
